


Time is the dealer in second chances

by Runespoor



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Bruce's Issues Are Legion, Even Robining, F/M, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:23:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Tell me something only Robin would know</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time is the dealer in second chances

**Author's Note:**

> Time period: after Dick stopped being Robin, before Bruce met Jason.

She doesn’t stop wrestling even after he has her in a lock on the ground. From the way the costume resists, he knows it’s expert work, about as good as his own. Thicker than Dick’s costume used to be. She’s good, he saw that when she disarmed the muggers, but not good enough for that costume. Not exceptional enough for someone to pay to have her shipped here.

She throws her head back, trying to head butt him, and fluffy, bright blond hair jump with it. Fleetingly Batman wonders if it might be a wig, like Batgirl used to wear sewn to her cowl. He doesn’t think so; she’s only wearing the domino.

“Don’t fight,” he warns. But he doesn’t tighten his grip on her.

“Then let me go,” she retorts. “Or did you miss the part where I’m one of the good guys?”

Her figure, her voice, she’s a little younger than Dick.

“The costume you’re wearing isn’t yours.” The design is notably different, darker, more protective, but it’s easy to recognize the inspiration behind it. The Robin colors are the same.

Under him, she shakes, and it takes him a moment (sensorial memory of Selina under him) to realize it’s a laugh.

“Yeah, well, you gave it to me. In the future where I come from.”

“You’re from the future?” He doesn’t have to force himself to sound skeptical.

“Hey, these things happen,” she defends herself. “You work with the League, you know it does.”

Much as it pains him to admit. It does.

There’s something frightening at the thought of – of taking another partner. Of this girl, blond and fighting when she’s down, as his partner. She’s not as good as Dick – no-one could be as good as Dick. From the way she talks, she was either born in Gotham or raised here since she was a child.

“Why didn’t you come find me at once, when you found yourself temporally displaced?”

“Huh, boss? Maybe cause it’s night and you’d be out here, patrolling?”

The word, _boss_ , rolls naturally from her lips. The hint of sarcasm would probably be more detectable in other circumstances. An endearment?

“Tell me something only Robin would know,” he orders.

She thinks a moment, then offers, “Alfred makes the best cocoa.”

She hasn’t finished her sentence that he releases her, steps away. Robin pulls herself up, flips her head over her shoulder, and puts her hands on her hips. “And you’re a drill sergeant.”

“Everybody knows that,” he points out.

She nods. “Thus why I didn’t say it.” She looks him up and down, and Bruce finds himself halting his breath. Who knows how far ahead in the future she’s from, and what she knows him as. Maybe – and this might be vain hopes speaking – she knows him middle-aged. Does he make it to forty? Fifty? More? Does he live to—to watch Dick bounce his children in the air, and tell them stories with no dead parents in them?

Painfully he has to refrain himself from asking when she’s from. He knows the rules. Even the slightest information could throw the continuum into a turmoil.

“You’re not gonna ask how I’m called?”

His mind goes blank for a moment. “I assumed you went by Robin.”

She smiles. Robin wears lipstick. Bruce has no idea why this observation is relevant. “I meant my, y’know, secret identity.”

He turns away. The question implies that she’d be willing to answer. Again the temptation to inquire about Dick, about Barbara or Jim ( _fancies quickly dispelled of Jim following at a leisurely pace children shouting Uncle Bruce, and Barbara’s hand on Dick’s arm as she stands to make an announcement, and Jim and he sitting on a bench, silent while Jim smokes his pipe_ ) titillates him, and he has to swallow it back. (How would she fit into that wish world – Robin? Does Barbara find her? Will Dick come back at some point, and brings her to Bruce, as the perfect successor? Is she even born yet, or is she trying on a homemade costume before sneaking out in the night? Do they meet ten years or two days from now?)

“You can’t tell me anything about the future. Including your name. If you did, it—”

“—might end the world as we know it, yeah yeah, okay.” Robin raises her hands in a gesture half-appeasing, half-dismissive (of his concerns, clearly – he’s known her for five minutes and already he knows they butt heads on rules), and shifts on her feet, cocking a hip. “So. Are we patrolling, or are you taking me back to the Cave to figure out how to send me back?”

“The Cave,” he says briskly. “I have to figure out how you ended here first.”

“And that means _tests_ ,” Robin says, in a disgusted tone. “Joy.”

Batman can’t help but snort. She’s not – she’s _not_ Dick, but _Robin_ is very distinctive.

She eyes him, speculative. “You let me drive the car, in the future,” she informs.

Keeping his face from splitting into a smile requires effort that he’s only partly successful at. Robin stares as if he’d agreed to her (got to be, unless he’s disabled when she’s come from – paralysis, neural damage after repeated exposure to Joker poison or Scarecrow fumes, maybe) lie. “Nice try,” he comments. “I’m driving the car.”

“…Huh,” Robin says. “It was worth a shot?”

He shakes his head to keep from snorting again, and makes to turn away, but as he does she steps closer, blocking him. She looks—uncertain. The muscles under her lower lip twitch as if she’s keeping from biting her lip. Inability to keep one’s emotions to appear on one’s traits: universal Robin feature.

He simply waits. Whatever is bothering her, Robin will ask.

“I can’t tell you about the future, right? And you can’t ask me?” She sounds more nervous than she has until now.

What is she looking for? He doesn’t know what answer she wants to hear, so he does the only thing that makes sense. Nod; the truth.

“Okay,” and her voice is high, and breathy and a little frightened, and she puts her hands on his cheeks and tiptoes and kisses him.

He should—

He absolutely should recoil. Break away. Put a stop to it. Put his hands on her shoulders, push her away, and tell her, _Robin_. ( _no_ or _we shouldn’t_ or _I can’t_ ) He shouldn’t stand there and let her kiss him. He should even less kiss her back.

But he does, fingers tangling in that bright blond hair, cape thrown around them until she’s drowned in black Kevlar, and there are tongues in this kiss now (did he do this? Is that his fault? He doesn’t know whose lips opened first.), and her hands have slid behind his neck.

Her lipgloss tastes sticky sweet like fruit (I can’t tell you about the future, right) and it should stop him like struck by thunder that in the future he’s gone so far down this, this can take place. It should - it _should_ stop him from losing himself into Robin’s kiss.

It should stop him.

But it doesn’t.


End file.
